RICH HERITAGE: It’s no longer shackled to feudalistic and colonial entrapments, but is enticed by the modern secular, materialistic paradigm
THE Malay mind is a conglomeration of Islamic, animistic, Hindu, feudal, colonial and modernistic traits. However, feudalism, more than the others, suffuses the Malay mind and even today it bears the vestiges of such an imprint. Nevertheless, the modern Malay mind is no longer shackled to the feudalistic and colonial entrapments, but it is enticed by the modern, secular materialistic paradigm.
The early Malays, that is the Proto and Deutro Malays, had a simple mind focused on survival, mainly shelter and food. Food was collected and hunted from the jungle; shelter was rudimentary, usually caves or simple thatched constructions.
The mind was not burdened with trying to analyse and find meanings in natural phenomena and the miracles and wonderment of rites of passage of births and deaths. Such happenings were taken for granted as a fact of existence.
The mind was merely preoccupied with survival in line with the capacity of the brain that was then concerned with the simplicity of existence.
With the later migration waves of people from the north, south and west, the Malay race developed its identity that incorporated Indian, Chinese, Bugis and Javanese traits, representing the archipelagic characteristics of the inhabitants of the Old Malay World.
As the Malay mind developed through self-awareness and external influences, the community became organised into a systemic social order governed by the unwritten code of ethical and moral principles. The organisation was a hierarchical communal village structure with a consensual headman and a loose council of elders having the shaman as the adviser for all aspects of communal life.
The Malay mind then was a communal one, uncluttered with idiosyncratic tendencies. Communal expediency sublimated individual intents.
With the advent of Indian cultural influence, the animistic inclination of the Malay mind was suffused with Hindu religion and culture. It was not a dramatic shift as the Malay animistic mind, which incorporated worship of the various animistic spirits, paralleled those of the Hindu pantheon. Thus, the reverence and obeisance for the animistic spirits were transferred to the plethora of Hindu gods.
This was the beginning of the feudal system as the king was regarded as the divine reincarnation of the Hindu gods. They were the avatars and likened to Rama, Krishna and Vishnu believed to possess supernatural powers.
The Malay mind was thus conditioned into submission, adhering to various ritualistic ceremonies glorifying the monarchs and paying obeisance to them.
With the advent of Islam in the 13th century in Perlak and Pasai in Sumatra, the Malay psyche once again metamorphosed, acculturating Islamic elements based on the Quran and Hadiths and the concept of monotheism.
However, the past animistic and Hindu imprints, which had become hereditary traits in the Malay psyche, could not be simply erased. The new Islamic elements were accepted because of conviction and resided alongside the existing animistic and Hindu traits.
In time the Islamic elements suffused the Malay mind and became the dominant part of its psyche but with vestiges of animistic and Hindu elements that persist until today.
This was the nature of the Malay mind during the emergence of the feudal system. It has, through time, been conditioned to show reverence and undivided loyalty to the headman of an animistic community, the titular ruler of a Hindu-based Malay community and the sultans and raja as ulul amri (leader of the Islamic faith) as having divine disposition or as vice-regents of Allah on earth in accordance with the Islamic faith.
The Malay mind had been conditioned into a submissive mode. A premium was placed on loyalty; almost blind loyalty as a norm. Loyalty, obeisance and self-sacrifice, which overrode ethical and moral principles in dealing with royalty, were ingrained in the Malay mind. Any deviation from this norm would be labelled as blasphemy or traitorous and would incur the wrath of the rulers or leaders.
Thus, when the court system was emplaced in the Malay Archipelago, with rajas and sultans installed in their own territorial enclaves, the feudal system became the main form of governance and was easily accepted as one of submission, loyalty to a fault and the linking of the ordinary Malay’s self pride with the wellbeing, pomp and grandeur of the sultans and rajas. The plight of the people was inconsequential. It was unthinkable to assail the monarchs for any transgressions on his subjects. However, in a progressive feudal system the sultans and rajas would ensure the wellbeing of his subjects and would govern his state in a fair and just manner as ordained in the syariah and the tenets of the Quran.
The early colonisation period by the Portuguese and Dutch reaffirmed the nature of the Malay mind when they fought the invaders to safeguard the sultans and their territories more than themselves. For they believed the sultans owned the very land they walked on. Even today the sultans and rajas declare themselves as reigning over the state and all the territorial lands associated with it.
When the British came, initially with the pretext of trading by setting up The East India Company on Penang island in 1786, and when later they usurped the powers of the sultan, the subservient attitude of the Malays was transferred to the British.
They became the tuans who governed and dictated the lives of the Malays whom they referred to condescendingly as fun-loving and lazy natives, a derogatory term that connotes uncivilised people.
In short, the British assumed the stature and the power of the sultans and the rajas who were relegated to powerless inconsequential position to merely oversee the religious and cultural affairs of the Malay community.
The writer, Dr Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin is an emeritus professor of Performing Arts in the School of Arts at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang
* Part 2 of this article will appear in the NST tomorrow